Shelby County school leaders celebrate excellence at annual meeting

Superintendent Randy Fuller addresses Board of Education members and district leaders during the annual Celebrating Excellence meeting.

Since the implementation of the Shelby County School District’s strategic planning process 11 years ago, Superintendent Randy Fuller estimates that more than 600 goals in the system's 12 strategic areas have been met. Fuller joined district leaders and board members on Thursday, Sept. 21 at the annual Celebrating Excellence meeting to highlight the latest accomplishments from the 2016-17 Strategic Plan and to preview Goal Action Plans that have been developed by strategic leadership teams for next year.

Along with celebrating the success of the strategic planning process, Fuller shared the other three components of the organizational vision for the district, which he refers to as the four “Engines that Drive Our System.” The other components include Continuous School Improvement (CSI), Leadership Development, and Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment.

Dana Martin, School Improvement and Federal Programs Supervisor, said the district’s local indicator for state accountability purposes was to increase the number of student-led conferences because it fosters students’ leadership skills and encourages them to take responsibility for their own learning. During the 2016-17 school year, 30 percent of all students in Shelby County participated in a student-led conference, which helped every school in the district receive 100 points for the local indicator on the state’s A-F Report Card. Earning those points, in turn, helped the school district earn an A on the state report card — the only county school district in the state to do so.

This year, the state has added a program review to its accountability model. For schools without a 12th grade (elementary, intermediate and middle) the objective is to improve family engagement in innovative ways. The district plans to meet this objective by implementing the Shelby County Parent Connection “Shelby Talk” blog and hosting two virtual events in September 2017 and January 2018. The topics discussed on the blog will be student assessment and curriculum and instruction. Parents will be able to view a record presentation and then post comments and questions on the blog during the virtual event. Instructional staff will review the questions and respond with answers.

For schools with a 12th grade (high schools), the program review objective is student advocacy. The district plans to meet this objective with the development of the LEAD Program, which was overseen by Kim Bailey, Counseling and Testing Supervisor. Through the LEAD Program, every student is assigned an adult advocate.

Under the Continuous School Improvement process, Martin said the district will shift to the Scantron Performance Series as the state-required assessment and data from this assessment will now be used by the Alabama State Department of Education to determine improvement and accountability results. However, Shelby County schools will also continue to use ACT Interim Assessments to drive instructional decisions. The two data days which were built into the current school calendar will be used to analyze data from both sources to improve student achievement.

Dr. Lynn Carroll, Assistant Superintendent of Instruction, shared an overview of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, which Fuller considers to be the core business of the district.

“This is what we do,” Fuller said to the district leaders and board members who were present. “This isn’t replicated anywhere else. We make the extra effort and I want to commend you. This is by design and it is intentional. Sticking to our roadmap is what makes us successful.”

Dr. Carroll said the instructional team is always looking at the district’s vision of “being a model of excellence” as their motivation.

“Our instructional team is a model of excellence,” Dr. Carroll said. “We want to always be looking at our processes and improving.”

She explained to the board that Shelby County students had shown great progress with ACT Aspire, the assessment just phased out by the state. She credited the hard work of the instructional team, instructional coaches, teachers and administrators in helping students rise to those higher standards. The ACT Aspire Interim Assessments were also a great tool in helping to provide real-time data on students, which is one reason why the district will be continuing to use it despite the state’s decision to switch to a different assessment.

Dr. Leah Anne Wood, Coordinator of Strategic Planning and Leadership Development, shared the district’s efforts toward developing its own leaders through programs like the Administrative Residency Program, which is helping to train new administrators, and Teacher Leadership Academy, which is training teacher leaders who are aspiring to become future administrators.

Dr. Wood said most of the principals and assistant principals jobs which have been filled by the board in the past two years have been products of these two programs.

Each of the 12 Strategic Leadership Team chairs also presented a list of their accomplishments for the 2016-17 year.